GUILTY VA - Kindergarten Teacher and School Nurse Held in Murder-for-Hire Plot

A Virginia elementary school teacher and a school nurse are facing charges in what police are calling a murder-for-hire plot.

Angela Nolen, a 47-year-old kindergarten teacher, was arrested Wednesday for allegedly plotting to hire a hit man to kill her ex-husband for $8,000. According to police, Nolen’s friend 37-year-old Cathy Bennett, a school nurse, worked with Nolen to find a hit man.

According to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, Nolen’s plan unraveled when she gave a police officer, working under cover as a hit man, an up-front fee of $4,000 to kill her ex-husband, 63-year-old Paul Strickler.

Strickler, who is the father of Nolen’s 7-year-old daughter, told the Roanoke Times he had been working on a deal to sell his house to Nolen.

“If I was dead, she would not have to give me the money,” he told the Roanoke Times. “That scares the H-E-L-L out of me. I’m just so glad that the state police found out about this and uncovered it.”

Strickler’s attorney, Stephen Meddy, said his client was “distraught” when he heard about the alleged plot and that the couple’s divorce proceedings had raised no red flags. Nolen had full custody of their daughter before her arrest.

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At the hearing in Franklin County Circuit Court, that nurse, Cathy Warren Bennett, was given 18 months to serve in prison, with about 3 1⁄2 years in suspended time. Bennett, held in custody since her plea hearing in August, will receive credit for the two months she’s already served.

Last month her codefendant, Angela Nolen, a former kindergarten teacher at Sontag Elementary School, was sentenced to eight years and 2,000 hours of community service.

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